About

I'm James Alan Rome — a retired theoretical physicist, lifelong programmer, and habitual tinkerer living in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Professional Background

I spent 25 years at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the magnetic fusion energy program, and then the Computer Science Division.  My work focused on:

• Neutral-beam injection and fast-ion orbit calculations in tokamaks

• Magnetic design and optimization for stellarators

• Editing Stellarator News, the international newsletter for the stellarator community

• Computer security—Designed a multilevel secure file room for DOE, Secure remote access for online electron microscopes.

• Studied air traffic. Wrote the first paper to identify ripple delay.

I care deeply about the future of fusion energy and have written extensively on the engineering trade-offs between tokamaks (like ITER) and stellarators (like Wendelstein 7-X).

Programming & Computing

Computers have been a constant throughout my career and hobbies. I work primarily in C, Java, SQL, and R. I run OpenSUSE LEAP in a stand-alone server (at home) and am now learning the wonderful world of AI.

Other areas I follow closely:

• Linux and macOS system administration

• Security and privacy

• Air traffic analysis and management

• Scientific graphics and data visualization

Software Projects

I build small, practical utility programs. Current offerings include:

• FindPlace — An AI-powered tool that geotags photos and identifies where they were taken, aimed at cameras whose EXIF data lacks location info.

• AI Home Inventory — An app for cataloging household items.

Free trial versions are available; see the programs page for details.

A Note on the Name

There are several other James/Jim Romes on the internet — including a collision-shop software vendor, another air traffic analyzer, an artist (whose pictures I own),  and, of course, the sports talk radio host. I am none of these people. This site reflects only my own work, writing, and projects.

My personal blog site is https://jamesrome.net.